


A Matter of Confidence

by Toxic_Waste



Series: A Plot/B Plot Swap AU [2]
Category: Phineas and Ferb
Genre: A Plot/B Plot Swap AU, Alternate Universe, F/M, Gen, Introspection, One Shot, POV Second Person, Phindace, Shippy Gen, Unusual Relationship Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 04:30:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,521
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15429045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Toxic_Waste/pseuds/Toxic_Waste
Summary: Lies are arguably the glue that had holds society together - whether or not that in itself is a lie can be debated, but there is one thing they are holding together for sure: Candace’s life.And they’re not doing a very good job of it, either.





	A Matter of Confidence

**Author's Note:**

> It’s another story set in an alternate universe that I’ve written about before in the story _Coasting Rollers_. The story here... it should be able to stand on its own two feet alone, but I would still recommend reading that one-shot first, just to provide a more thorough and accurate summation of that which is this AU.
> 
> [The link to Coasting Rollers can be found here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15235530), and if you don’t want to read that one first, then the important bits of the AU - that directly effect the story - have Phineas and Candace as adults in the roles that Heinz and Perry usually have in the show.

“You know, I haven't... really told anyone else this. But you're... it's different with you. You don't try to brush me off or ignore me or interrupt me like that. Why is that?” There’s a long pause after the question, your nemesis staring blankly down at you. He might be  looking at you, but you can tell that he’s anywhere but the here and the now.

Suddenly, he blinks, and a grin cracks over his face as his eyes refocus on yours.  “Well, right now it's because you can't, of course.”

You almost can’t quite resist the urge to roll your eyes (in many ways, his jokes are Phineas’ most evil quality, though you know he’d beg to differ) as you shrug as far as you’re able with the ropes and his weight bearing down on your chest. He looks away from you, down onto the floor, then up at the roof, then off at the horizon through the window. 

“Mmmph,” you  remark calmly, conversationally . It’s not even really supposed to  mean anything in particular – if you weren’t gagged, chances are it’d have sounded exactly the same, except less muffled, obviously. He smiles faintly, running a finger down the bridge of your nose.

The smell of motor grease is strong on the hand so close to your face, and you’re sure there’s probably a long smear of  some sort left behind for you to wash off later. When the finger reaches the tip of your nose, it stops, and he taps you repeatedly until you make another  muffled noise, and it abruptly stops.

He sits silently for another minute or two – which in itself is quite unusual – but clears his throat at last.

“ With you… with you, even if I took out the gag, I know you wouldn't. Wouldn’t interrupt me like that. And I... don't quite understand why.”

For a moment, you wonder if he’s actually going to take out your gag – as he reaches over to your face again, but he only rests his hand over your mouth, gag and all, and shrugs.

“ I don’t understand.”

“Mmmph.” You  say again into his  palm , and make a token effort to squirm against the ropes, but neither one seems to have any effect, really, aside from prompting him to move his hand and readjust his seat on you slightly, all while continuing to stare into space.

It  is a good question, you suppose, even if it was hardly phrased as a question at all.

And, to be fair, you’re not even sure why he does apparently trust you, of of all people, considering that by and large you are, if nothing else, a professional liar. 

Someone who’s literally made a career and a life work out of deceiving everyone close to you (which was never that many people to begin with) on more things than you can count. More things than you can be honest about, for sure.  Sometimes it seems like the only times you can be  honest is when you don’t – or can’t – talk at all.

Which is a strange feeling in itself, but there’s no denying its truth. What does your brother think you’re doing right now again? Oh, yeah, working as a poorly-paid paper pushed deep in the bowels of Danville’s DMV office. 

And, yes, you are poorly-paid, and you do have to push papers from time to time, but that’s hardly the point. 

Even with Phineas you have to lie – and he knows this, because you’re an OWCA agent and lying is just what you do. 

Sometimes you really do hate your job. 

Yet things like this still happen. You’ve been working with – or rather, against – Phineas Flynn for a good while now, and you like to think that you’re at least vaguely aware of your nemesis'... well, 'mental state' is the way the Rules & Regs would put it, but somehow that seems too – too cold and impersonal to go with Phineas now. 

You do believe him, at any rate. Though you’ve gotten to hear many monologues from the man, and even more backstories, and though you may have gotten some bits and pieces of this one before, never had you heard it in its entirety. 

And it seemed like he’d intended to keep it that way, too, but then he got started and it was... like watching a train wreck, almost, and he hardly stopped for breath once the whole the way through. 

Funny how that works. 

“I... I guess I ought to get back to – to, you know, work,” he says, looking embarrassed for reasons you’re not entirely confident of. “You know, the – the Pancake-Syrup-Inator and all.” He shrugs, quite visibly not putting much heart in it all, and reaches over to your face again, pinching  one of your cheeks . 

You glare at him, and he looks particularly satisfied with himself for being so clever.

The last traces of the awkwardness and pain on his face since he began monologuing to you this morning  disappear as he grins . "Sorry. Sometimes I can’t help myself. You’re cute when you’re all red-faced like that." He blinks, and some of the  hilarity fades from his eyes. "I mean, uh, it’s 'cause it’s Evil! I’m Evil – I was, uh, I mean, do I really need a reason to do Evil anyway? No, no I do not. I just do, because I  am Evil, as you’ll soon see – thanks to my latest and greatest -inator!”

He grins again – in  a distinctly more maniacal way this time, yanking a pair of scissors from somewhere and neatly cutting your gag in two. You cough, violently spitting the wadding out as he jumps up  off you and darts across the room. 

"You’ll never stop me noooooow!" he calls behind him in a sing-songy voice, and a moment later the distinct whining of his -inator warming up fills the lab. 

You’re perfectly content to play the part of helpless mute listener/seat-cushion when the time calls for it – but  when that that time is over, the game is back afoot,  and you  do have a job to do; a duty to uphold.  Everything like that.

Now that he’s no longer sitting on you, you’re able to roll off the tabletop, falling with a cacophonous crashing to the floor, where you saw his scissors fall when he carelessly tossed them away.

Once you’re on the floor with the scissors, it’s easy enough to roll on top of them and get a grip with three fingers, and from there it’s only seven seconds flat before the ropes are lying useless on the floor, neatly slit apart right down the middle of the knots that’d been in them.

Snatching up your fedora from where it fell  when you fell off the table, you’re on your feet in another blink, closing the distance between you and your nemesis before he has time to even think of checking to make sure you’re still  trapped. He’s utterly blindsided, like always, and the fight is quick.  Though he does manage to block your first blow,  he still vastly overextends on the counterattack, and the opportunity isn’t one you let slide. 

The remaining swings are almost nothing more than a formality, and he topples over in a heap on the ground, leaving you open to spin around and kick the Pancake-Syrup-Inator squarely in the middle of the flashing red button marked ‘Do Not Press’ on the controls.

Phineas yells after you, cursing your name as you leap off his balcony, unfolding your pop-out hangglider and soaring away to the tune of the thunderous explosion that erupts behind you. Obeying  _ OWCA Agent Protocols and By-Laws; A Supplementary Handbook  Volume 7,  _ _Chapter 24, Page 1,254, Paragraph 423, Section III, Line 12_ , you keep your eyes ahead, never looking back at the detonation.

It is, by all accounts, another successful mission.

And yet, for some reason, you can’t quite get the question out of your head.

Does Phineas  trust you? It might be a bit naive to go believing him like you do – after all, the man  is evil – but after all this time, you feel like you can tell when he’s actively doing evil, and when he’s… not. And that look when he said he’d never have trusted anyone else to hear the story you heard this morning, well, it might not be much, but somehow it doesn’t feel like it would be very… fair? Fair – to call his honesty into question.

Which makes the question only that much more a broad one.  Why does he trust you –  you , an agent of OWCA, a professional liar, the one who’s paid (not enough) to beat him up every day.

It echoes and re-echoes in your mind as you file the paperwork for the thwarting back at your lair – and echoes ever louder as you lie on the forms about why you let him keep you  tied up for so long.

“ Baljeet,” you say on impulse to the intern as you drop the papers off. “Do you trust me?”

"Agent C?” He glances up at you, clearly uncomprehending. “Regulations say I-”

“ Yes, yes, I know about regulations.” You brush the rest of his answer off. “Never mind.”

It simply won’t quit bothering you, though, even as you finally return home. Putting your watch into vibrate mode, you pray that nothing’ll happen to disturb you and try to lose yourself in a rerun of an episode of  Ducky Momo that happens to be airing on television. The show… sort of helps, a little bit, and it’s not like you really have any other options anyway, what with having to remain perpetually on call.

That night, though, it all comes back – somehow even worse than before – when you look directly into your brother’s eyes across the dinner table and are forced to lie about how your day went.

Did you mention how much you can hate your job sometimes?

Directly after telling him all about the boring day you had pushing papers in a basement, though, you can’t really resist the urge to speak up again. It’s a lot more speaking than you usually do when home, but you just can’t get the question out of your head.

“ Perry, do you trust me?”

“ Hmm?” He blinks, looking at you with clear confusion telegraphed in his eyes. “Of course I do, Candace, I…” in the awkward pause that follows, his eyes dart downward – and you know well enough that they’re tracing every inch of the red marks still faintly lingering on your wrists and arms and, heck, maybe even on your face (you never bothered looking in a mirror after debriefing this afternoon).

“ It’s okay – it was a stupid question anyway,” you interrupt, pushing away from the table. “I think I’m gonna go… lie down now.”

He nods, returning to his food as you collect the dishes and deposit them in the dishwasher. It was probably just as pointless to ask him as to ask Baljeet – you already knew what they were going to say anyway? You know well enough what he sees when he looks at you, as untrue and unfair as it might be. Without the knowledge of your secret identity playing in, you  are , frankly, a loser. Honestly, you should probably just be thankful he doesn’t seem to mind you living with him.

Although the turmoil inside your mind isn’t enough to triumph over your long-standing discipline and training and keep you from falling asleep, that doesn’t mean things look that much better the next morning, either.

Perry’s already gone, the neat handwritten note stuck your bedroom door talking of ‘early shift’ or something.

You just pour yourself a heaping bowl of cereal and plant yourself down in front of the television again, trying to convince yourself that you’re fine, that you should just get over it. And trying to not think of the fact that, by doing so, you are in essence lying to yourself.

You’ve never been quite so relieved as when your watch finally buzzes and beeps, signaling your daily summon to your lair for briefing.

Major Shapiro is on the big screen again, looking as unamused as usual as she delivers your mission. Honestly, you’re hardly listening to the exact words the woman says – the only parts you’ll probably remember five minutes from now are 'large quantities of packing peanuts' and 'put a stop to it', which you will, because it’s just what you do. 

You certainly aren’t going to ask the Major whether or not she trusts you – OWCA depends on all its agents to a heavy degree, but you’re well enough aware of the difference between professional dependence and... well, you highly doubt the Major would ever go on about her problems with you. 

She does ramble about her life story, and sometimes demands descriptions of things – mostly Phineas – but it’s all very different. Besides, you’re the subordinate, anyway, and to ask such questions would breach at least three of OWCA’s internal protocols, and that’s on a good day.

The subordinate at work, the shiftless loser at home with your brother, and probably the woman with the crazy stories anywhere else you go, which isn’t that many places to begin with. 

Thus it is anyway that you end up back in Phineas Flynn’s apartment come eleven that morning, crashing violently through a window and rolling to a stop directly in the middle of a trap. 

"Ah, there you are, Candace!" he exults upon hearing your entry and the subsequent springing of his trap. "I have you now!"

So he does. 

Grunting a little bit, he picks you up and manages to sling you over his shoulder – all to carry you over and deposit you on the couch pushed against the far laboratory wall. You  take a  quick breath before opening your mouth for him to  finish doing his thing . 

"Mmmph!"

"You oughtta relax." He grins, sticking out his tongue. " Aren’t going anywhere,  after all. "

"Mmmph."

He shakes head and turns around, sitting down squarely in the center of your chest. You mock-protest and  struggle ,  and when no real affect is had, he leans back with a satisfied smile, still unshaken from his perch. 

It’s all very normal and routine, and after a minute you stop  fighting in favor of lying still and mute as he sits atop  you . 

"Well, Candace," he commences after a moment. "Now that you’re a, heh, captive audience-" and you roll your eyes again, having only heard this pun a thousand times before "-I suppose there’s nothing stopping me from starting at the beginning, is there?" He pauses only just long enough to tuck a stray strand of your hair back behind your ear once more. "You see, when I was but a small boy, there was a time when I was fascinated by bubble wrap. I mean, what’s not to love? It’s soft and fun to poke and squeeze – kinda like you are. I mean, I never tried sitting on it, but maybe I should." He stops and seems to consider the idea. "Nah, I’d rather sit here."

You’re sure he would.

**Author's Note:**

> A running theme with AUs I create or develop seems to be “strange but oddly sweet even so.” I would... not call this particular interaction an exception, I don’t believe.


End file.
